Let me tell you another story. It is about Ryan, the account executive, and Susan, the presales engineer, working on a significant deal for a few months. They have gathered a ton of information. The customer's pain was real and tied to some very extensive metrics agreed upon. The sales team was very proud of how broad relationships in the account were developed in the account. The Champion, Robert, sat right below the economic buyer.
There were forty-five days left in the quarter. The Champion said they would select the winning vendor in a few days and said he was confident we would win; everyone had chosen them. Two days passed, and Ryan's phone rang. As he picked up his cell, he saw on his caller id that it was Robert, "Yes," thought Ryan, the call he had been waiting on. "Hey Robert, what's the good news?" Ryan projected. "Hi Ryan, um, well, this might not be the news I was expecting to call you with."
WHAT?!? How could this be? Ryan was so sure, as was Robert, what could have happened? Robert continued to explain. During the meeting to finalize the vendor, the Economic Buyer, Beverly, said that they wanted to be able to implement within the next three months. Ryan told Robert that would not be a problem. Robert said it would and explained that if they don't purchase a solution from an approved vendor list, it must be approved by the parent company. The parent company does not get involved if the vendor is already on the list. Unfortunately, that process alone takes three months, so they would not be able to implement Ryan's solution in time. Instead, they are going with the competitor for whom they already own a small piece of the software, which meant they were on the approved vendor list.
This is a true story. The challenge here is that Ryan didn't uncover the entire decision process. It is critical to pick through the decision process with as many people as possible in your opportunities because rarely does anyone know every step. Additionally, processes may change over time. If the last time your Champion or Economic Buyer was involved in a purchase was over a year ago, lots could have changed. Maybe they were acquired, hired a new CFO, implemented a new procurement system, and established a new process. In this case, an extra step was required for vendors who were not on the approved vendor list, which would cause them to be unable to meet the implementation period.
One way to become an expert in the decision process is to start with your own company and learn how your company buys software. Additionally, don't discount external factors to the decision-making team, such as compliance committees, security committees, and/or deployment committees. In our upcoming training that we will roll out, we will help you identify common misses in the decision process. Remember, MEDDIC is not a one-and-done, every part of MEDDIC needs constant inspection and testing.
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